JP/7/KOREA26

JP/7/KOREA26

President Roh must stay firm on N.Korea policy Shim Jae Hoon Journalist Korea Herald

President Roh Moo-hyun is in a ring of fire over his policy shifts on North Korea. But he should stay the course, not waiver.

The first test of Roh's leadership comes from the Hanchongnyon national student group, which is attacking his new "tougher" line on the North following the recent summit talks with U.S. President George W. Bush. The student radicals, once a base of support in his quest for the Blue House, accuse him of "subservience" to Bush's hard-line policy on the nuclear standoff. They attack Washington for preparing a preemptive strike on the North's Yongbyon nuclear facility, saying the South must block that at all cost.

From the North comes a predictable series of blackmails. Pak Chang-ryon, the chief North Korean delegate to the economic talks in Pyongyang on Tuesday, has threatened to unleash an "incalculable calamity" against the South if it linked the economic cooperation projects with the nuclear issue.

The Pyongyang regime insists on keeping the nuclear standoff separate from economic collaboration, such as relinking severed railways, and Seoul building an industrial park for development of North Korean industry. Its attitude is this: You go on providing us with more economic aid or we will shake your security front. As for the nuclear issue, leave that us and the United States to deal with.

It's bluster and blackmail, but it should not leave us intimidated. Nor should it, in any way, affect the Roh administration's new course of continuing with humanitarian food aid, even as it links future economic projects with the nuclear issue. With the Pyongyang regime now openly admitting it has nuclear weapons, and declaring the 1992 denuclearization accord with the South null and void, the North can't expect the South to go on playing the role of Santa Claus forever. Seoul is right in putting on hold the ongoing discussion on rail links and the industrial park in Gaeseong.

It's time for Seoul to do some hardnosed calculations. It has already pumped a large amount of cash into the North under former president Kim Dae-jung's misguided policy of buying peace with cash transfers. On top of over $500 million in illegal cash payments by Hyundai business group, the North has received other hard currency through merchandise trade and Mount Geumgang tourism fees.

But this program of aid in cash and kind has failed to trigger reciprocal moves on the political front. The North still keeps tensions high along the border; it keeps peace talks and family reunions haphazardly based on more aid. Every promise of dialogue has required a new price tag.

But that hasn't kept Seoul and Washington from becoming the two biggest sources of food aid to the North for almost a decade now, practically forcing them to feed the 22 million starving North Koreans on behalf of their totalitarian regime, which callously diverts resources for developing the "bomb."

Therefore, the two countries are sending more shipments of food and fertilizer this year, in response to the North's audacious demand for half a million tons of rice this year, and 200,000 tons of fertilizer to raise more crops.

But this time, Seoul is pressing the North to accept outside monitors to check on distribution to make sure grains destined for the neediest people are not diverted to feed the soldiers of the Korean People's Army. Our Agriculture Ministry officials should go one step farther and keep our grain shipments, consisting of corn and maize, which are consumed by ordinary North Koreans, not party and military leaders.

In short, Seoul's aid policy will aim more at succoring the suffering North Korean populace, rather than filling up military or party elites. Our new policy goals also require stopping cash transfers to Pyongyang, including cash for merchandise trade. At the same time, Seoul must actively help the Japanese government's efforts to end cash remittances by ethnic Korean residents in Japan supportive of the North.

Internal challenges to President Roh's new policy initiatives are no less tough. At home, he needs to deal firmly with the leftwing community in general, including the National Teachers and Education Workers Union protesting the policy shifts on Pyongyang. The National Police Agency and the Justice Ministry are right in regarding student demonstrators and illegal strike planned by leftwing school teachers as requiring a strong response to maintain law and order.

It is true that once they played a constructive role of leading the country's fight for democracy under military rule. But South Korea has long since built its democratic institutions; indeed, it is well on the way to consolidating this achievement. All this could crumble in the face of new threats of war and violent revolutions as unleashed by the North's totalitarian system.

It's time Roh drew the line on activism now that we are under obligation to protect and nurture our political process in the South. He should make it clear that from now on, it's going to be the ballot, not street protest, that brings about political changes.